One foot in the grave. Her artistic universe has nothing to envy to superheros. This young italian artist play with a ton of ironical characters. As she puts it herself she "draws irony", a pure reflection of reality that makes us laugh to tears.
The heroes that we loved when we were young, the legendary comic book
superheroes, the artists we admire, are all Laurina’s Paperina target and thus seen from
a radically different point of view. Somewhat fatter (time goes by for them too…) and with
some white hairs relentlessly appearing here and there. But their stamina is still there. And
that's not bad, since things are not going the right way for them lately. A new superhero in a
skirt has appeared : The Amazing Pape , Laurina Paperina in civvies, dressed in tights, cloak
and mask who has been a pain in the neck for some advocates of justice. More human than
super, Pape has all the human flaws.
Space ships and extraterrestrials, men in
“day after” style protective suits, viruses
which proliferate inside computers or
laboratory test-tubes, are all metaphors
for an artistic language which has
made contamination its own ontological
status. This is not all, she adds invented
“knock-off” superheroes to genuine
characters from comics, playing a fiction
within the fiction, and giving a strongly
ironic and almost childish character to an
imagery which has often taken itself too
seriously. To make it even funnier, there
are phrases in Pidgin English on her
drawings, corrections and crossing out to
make the texts suitable for an international public, distortions of the name of famous heroes
(Plastic Man becomes Spastic Man).
But we can feel in these drawings and animations that
over the years, superheroes have had to face “super-problems”, which represent the
principal fears of post-modern humanity: the growth of urban violence, the danger of a global
atomic catastrophe, the menace from deep space.
As art critic Mariella Rossi puts these are “net generation drawings”. Laurina Paperina uses
instruments of the net generation, immediacy and speed, and filters them through the
manuality of design in order to put into discussion just that internet culture which she feeds
upon. In her works she gives life to ironic animations of which she creates protagonists,
enjoyable characters like space frogs, mysterious multi-colored mutants.
Opening on Saturday February 16th, 2008
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L’universo di Laurina Paperina non ha niente da invidiare al mondo dei super eroi! Laurina, giovane artista italiana, partecipa ad esposizioni di calibro internazionale che rivelano tutta la forza della sua arte e la gioia che ne deriva. I suoi personaggi incarnano un’ « ironia disegnata », che, tra apparenza e finzione, rappresenta un’immagine della realtà. A Laurina Paperina piace giocare con l’arte! Attraverso un approccio divertente e distaccato, le sue storie mettono in scena dei personaggi dai colori vivi : super eroi e personaggi famosi pronti a tutto. L’apparente leggerezza della tecnica, quasi infantile, diventa uno strumento giocoso e ironico per articolare dei percorsi narrativi inediti. Laurina Paperina mette in luce l’uomo contemporaneo con grandi risate. Una grande facoltà di osservazione, inoppugnabile, caraterizza il suo lavoro. L’artista si mette in gioco diventando lei stessa un super eroe e crea un’esperienza all’immagine del nostro mondo. Super Pape é un vera e propria eroina!
« Se Laurina Paperina potesse volare come Superman le sue missioni non sarebbero certamente quelle dell’eroe di Krypton » ricorda il critico d’arte italiano Luca Vona. Attraverso racconti minimalisti, concentrati nello spazio di un foglio di carta, l’artista mette in scena personaggi coraggiosi, energici e pronti a tutto per soddisfare i loro appetiti voraci. Oggi i super eroi devono far fronte ai « super problemi ». Anche Mariella Rossi sottoliena che « Laurina Paperina utilizza gli strumenti della sua generazione, dell’urgenza e della velocità.»
Per questa prima espsozione personale in Francia, Laurina Paperina propone disegni divertenti, infuocanti e pieni di lucidità, dei video presentati nel videoroom della galleria e delle installazioni inedite.
Galerie Magda Danysz
19 rue emile Durkheim - Paris
Free admission